I’ve been absent for the last three weeks for a good reason. Last weekend, I celebrated my club’s 40th anniversary, and by extension my 40 years as a Judo coach. We held a bash at our club for the occasion. Past and present members showed up for a great reunion that featured a nostalgic slideshow, empowering speeches, renewed friendships, and lots of food.
One of the last questions I posed my daughter Valerie when I interviewed her for the Outgrowing the Garage post I wrote two weeks ago was, “What words of wisdom would you have for anyone who wanted to start teaching Judo?” Her response surprised me a little, but it made sense.
Over the years, I’ve had many inquiries about starting a Judo club from scratch. My first impulse is to encourage coaches to start in a garage and then move into bigger facilities once membership can sustain the overhead. And that’s what SoCal Judo did in Temecula, California.
As a follow up to my last post (Show me the evidence!) I’m happy to announce that I’ve created a Facebook group, which is dedicated to bring together the Judo community that is disenchanted with IJF’s misguided leadership. The group is called the International Judo Freestyle Alliance. The idea for this group comes from Steve Scott, the founder of AAU Freestyle Judo rules. He picked my brain, asked me what I thought, and voila! A voice of sanity.
While there are many books that cover various aspects of Judo history, they always seem to me to be incomplete, maybe even superficial. That all changed when I read A History of Judo by 1964 British Olympian Syd Hoare, 8th Dan. Finally, this was the book that I had been looking for. A History of Judo was so informative and transformative that I bought out Amazon’s stock twice in order to offer the book to my assistant coaches.
I’ve noticed recently that many coaches are thinking about running a “good” tournament. I’m not sure what “good” means, but it probably indicates that most tournaments have lots of negative aspects to them, which leads many to think that they can do better. I do know that it’s very difficult to get a good turnout for your event, especially if it’s your first. Couple that with what’s typically a lack of support from the local clubs, assuming you even have other local clubs besides your own, and the prospect of renting a facility, getting awards, and running an event that doesn’t take money out of your pocket is a scary proposition.